Context 152 - November 2017

20 C O N T E X T 1 5 2 : N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 7 versions. In this case the circular metal plates set into the pavement were inspired by the coal-hole covers but are purely decorative. They were designed by the sculptor Keith Bowler, working to a 1995 commission from Bethnal Green City Challenge.The designs reflect Spitalfields’ culture and history: the themes include the match girls from the Bryant andMay factory (celebrated for their 1888 strike); the clothing industry (represented by scissors and buttons); and silk weavers (represented by a weaver’s shuttle and reels of thread). While coal-hole covers are the most locally distinctive, there is interest to be found in other metal covers to utilities below the street. People who have a particular fascination for them call themselves ‘gridders’.The lettering that some of these artifacts bear provides a historical record of the companies or authorities that made or installed them. Elsewhere, in Norway, Denmark and (often garishly coloured) in Japan, for example, the potential of utility covers for municipal self-expression has been vividly exploited. Pavement lights In the 19th century the manufacture of pavement lights for commercial premises became big business. Replacing open gratings, they allowed light into basement rooms, while providing a walkable surface at street level and keeping out the rain. In the mid-19th century pavement lights were made of blocks of glass set in a metal fame. Notches in the metal, and often the raised lettering with the maker’s name, made the surface less slippery for people passing along the street. In the 1870s Hayward Brothers, the company we have already come across as London’s largest manufacturer of coal-hole covers, introduced an innovation in its pavement lights. In addition to simple glass blocks (the cheapest option), they offered lights glazed with bull’s-eye lenses, semi-prisms and prisms, the last being the most expensive and the most effective in reflecting the light to where it was most needed. Later pavement lights were are at risk of being taken up, stolen, damaged, or buried under asphalt or concrete.That is why it is important to make people aware of the history under our feet. The Georgian streets of London’s Spitalfields retain a good number of historic coal-hole covers. There are also some examples there of what look like modern A rare pavement light incorporating a delivery hole. The benefits of pavement lights, from a 1890s Hayward Brothers and Eckstein catalogue An opening pavement light allowing deliveries to a pub The NewYork inventor and slavery abolitionist Thaddeus Hyatt became one of the leading manufacturers of pavement lights in England.